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Defensive lineman and team leader Bryant Young said after the game that he’ll make a decision this week on whether he will retire. The odds are that he’ll hang them up. Young wanted to make the choice this week so he can acknowledge the fans for the final time after 14 years in the league.

“The fans have been great I’ve been the blessed one in that relationship,” Young said.

He also admitted to being disappointed and unprepared for this double-digit loss season. “This really surprised me,” Young said. “It’s been such an emotional rollar coaster. I thought we would be better. I just don’t know what happened.”

Young said that he can handle the physical part of the game, and he proved that this season. It’s the mental part that weighs on him.

“It takes a lot of discipline, a lot of energy to get ready for the season,” he said. His wish was to get the 49ers back to where it was when he started with the team. As a rookie in 1994, the 49ers won their last Super Bowl.

Young also said coaching could be a possibility for him, after he takes a year off.

“I couldn’t get the team back to where they were as player,” Young said. “Maybe I can do it as a coach.”

-Shaun Hill thanked Norv Turner for bringing him to the 49ers. Hill thought his career was over before getting a call last year from Turner.

-Hill joked to his offensive linemen before the game that he was going to score a touchdown. He said he was going to give the ball to a lineman to spike. Joe Staley remembered what Hill said before the game, so when scored on a 3-yard bootleg in the second quarter, Staley ran to Hill and begged for the ball. “It was a pretty good spike,” Staley said.

-Credit the defense for holding the powerful Bengals to 13 points. A big reason was the defensive line, who held the Bengals 61 yards by playing only six men in the box. The defense mainly went with a nickel defense. “We got challenged this week by our coaches (head coach Mike Nolan and defensive coordinator Greg Manusky).”

-Center Eric Heitmann said staying on the field and getting first downs led to Frank Gore’s best rushing game of the year (29 carries, 138 yards). Gore gained 102 of those yards in the second half, despite the Bengals’ eight-man front.

-How much money did Hill make himself tonight? He’s an unrestricted free agent if the 49ers don’t sign him.